Forbidden Temptation

Chapter Five

The veils had disappeared, Rose reminded herself, tamping down the dread that had weighted her down for most of the evening. Once Frank Carter had started talking, the veils had begun to fade from the faces of the people around her. By the time she and Daniel left the library, she hadn’t seen any death veils at all.

What did that mean? That he’d decided against killing again so soon? Or that he’d chosen a victim; one she hadn’t seen as she was leaving the meeting?

“Warm enough?” Daniel fiddled with the car heater.

“I’m fine,” she lied. She wasn’t fine. She felt shaky and out of control, as if she were skating along the edge of an endless abyss every second she spent with Daniel.

She was attracted to him. Hard to deny it, given the way her arm still tingled where he’d held it as he’d helped her into the passenger seat of his Jeep or the way her heart was pounding like a drum line in her chest. Just the thought of his storm-cloud eyes watching her was enough to make her shiver.

But there were a lot of attractive men in the world. Hormones alone dictated that she’d find some of them tempting. She’d spent a lot of years ignoring those temptations, armed with the certainty that, when she finally met the right man for her, the evidence would be written all over his face and hers.

God, what she’d give to have those true-love veils back.

She felt as if she were flying blind, helpless to know whether the man who made her toes tingle and her breath catch in her chest was going to make her the happiest woman on earth or shatter her heart into a thousand bleeding pieces.

She’d had no idea just how much she’d depended on the true-love veils until she’d lost them.

Daniel pulled the Jeep up the steep drive at the front of her house and cut the engine. He gazed forward through the windshield at her garage door, his profile limned with golden light from the streetlamps. “Want me to come in and take a look around to make sure the place is secure?”

Pride urged her to tell him she’d be fine, but good sense won out. No point in taking stupid risks. If Daniel Hartman wanted to make sure she was alone, safely locked behind sturdy dead bolts, she’d be foolish to refuse the offer. “Sure. I’d appreciate that.”

At the front door, he held out his hand for her keys. She passed them over, her fingers brushing his. A now familiar jolt of energy darted up her arm.

He unlocked the dead bolt and opened the door, keeping her behind him until he’d turned on the lights, setting the foyer awash with warm gold light from the overhead chandelier. He locked the door behind them and moved from the narrow foyer into the living room, turning on the lamps and giving the room a thorough walk-through.

They moved from room to room, repeating the ritual, then climbed the polished stairs to the second floor and started the process all over again. They ended their tour in the bedroom at the end of the hall, the one Rose had chosen for herself because of the tall windows offering a stunning view of the Birmingham city skyline.

Daniel paused in front of the windows, moving aside the curtain panels to get a better look at the view. On impulse, Rose reached for the light switch, plunging them into darkness alleviated only by the city lights. Daniel turned his head, his profile visible only in silhouette.

“The view’s easier to see with the lights off,” she said.

“I’d forgotten what a pretty sight Birmingham can be at night,” Daniel murmured as she joined him by the window.

“I love it on a rainy night, when the water fractures all the lights into a thousand little diamonds.” Without planning to, Rose moved close enough to Daniel that his arm brushed hers. She breathed deeply, taking in his clean, masculine scent, the tug of attraction setting her nerve endings on fire.

He turned toward her, his head dipping closer. “Why did you really turn off the lights?”

She took a shaky breath, her heart hammering. Why had she turned off the lights? To set up a moment like this? To feel his hand on her face, his breath stir her hair? “Why did you really want to come in?” she responded, her voice raspy and low. She wished she could see the expression in his eyes.

She wasn’t sure who moved first, but before she could take another breath, his lips were touching hers. The kiss radiated warmth through her, igniting a slow burn that started deep in her belly and began to spread. The kiss grew fiercer, more demanding, pouring kerosene on the flames licking at her belly and down to her core.

Rising on tiptoe, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, urging him to fan the fire he’d started inside her. His tongue brushed her mouth, demanding entry, and she could do nothing but part her lips and let him inside.

He tasted like coffee and sweet cream, dark and rich with a bittersweet edge. He enclosed her in his arms, pulled her flush against him, until she felt every angle and plane of his lean, muscular body. She parted her thighs, welcomed the hard heat of his pelvis against hers, wondering at the little sparks shooting through her body from her hips to her breasts.

When he suddenly set her away from him, her body buzzed with shock. “What-”

“This can’t happen.” His raw voice sent another shiver down her spine. “Not a good idea.”

She stepped back on wobbly legs, sinking to the edge of the bed when the backs of her knees hit the mattress. Embarrassment washed over her, burning her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

He moved away and turned on the light. Rose squinted against the sudden illumination, the glow from the fixture over the bed overwhelming her dilated pupils. It took a second for her eyes to adjust enough to see him standing in her doorway, his gaze wary. Silence stretched between them, unbearable.

“Lock the front door behind me,” he said, snapping the band of tension. He headed for the staircase without giving her a chance to respond.

She caught up with him at the landing, forcing herself not to reach out and touch him, pulling him back with her to the bedroom. How humiliating would that be?

Her sudden craving for closeness, for the feel of someone else’s skin against hers, knocked her off balance. Was she reacting to the fear, the knowledge that, somewhere out there, hidden by the shelter of night, a killer stalked the streets around her, looking for his next prey? Was she reaching out for warmth, for a connection to someone else, someone who could protect her from the monster in the night?

She’d always been resolute in her determination to wait for her one true love. But losing that certainty had left her vulnerable to the unpredictable world around her, at the mercy of her own frantic fears and needs.

Vulnerable enough to make a fool of herself in front of a virtual stranger.

Daniel turned at the door, gazing at her with storm-dark eyes. “Lock the dead bolt and the knob lock,” he said.

She nodded, rubbing her damp palms against her skirt.

He hesitated before reaching for the doorknob, his head cocking slightly to one side as if he was thinking about saying something else. But he must have thought better of it, for he turned quickly and opened the door, slipping out into the night without saying another word.

Rose engaged the dead bolt and the lock on the doorknob, shutting off the foyer lights so that Daniel wouldn’t see her watching him as he exited her driveway and drove back toward Dunbar.

ROSE’S CELL PHONE rang Wednesday morning as she was walking outside to check her mailbox. “Browning Wedding Services.”

“I thought the meeting last night was great. Didn’t you?” Melissa said without preamble, her voice tinny and faraway through the cell phone.

Rose tucked the phone between her chin and shoulder, opening the mailbox. “I think it went well,” she answered, heat rising in her cheeks as she remembered how her night had gone after the meeting.

“Listen, I’ve changed my appointment at Bella to this afternoon instead of tomorrow. Mark’s taking me out for our three-year dating anniversary tomorrow night, so I’m taking the afternoon off to make myself gorgeous for it. I’m supposed to be at Bella this afternoon at two o’clock-she has several veils she wants me to see. Can you make it?”

“Yeah, sure. I can be there.” Not that she’d have much to do; Melissa always had a pretty good idea of exactly what she wanted, which meant there was little for Rose to do but sit back and let her client haggle with the dress-shop owner.

“Great! Listen, I’ve got to run. See you at two.” Melissa rang off.

Rose shut off the phone and flipped through the mail on her way back inside. She paused, puzzled, at finding a small, white envelope with nothing on it. No address, no stamp-nothing. Weird.

Frowning, she took a letter opener from the utility drawer in the kitchen and slit open the envelope. Inside she found a small card embossed on edges with silver butterflies. Plain, block letters in black ink sprawled across the center of the card. “Thanks for setting up the meeting. It was a big help.”

There was no signature on the note, nothing but those two brief sentences in black ink on the white card.

Rose dropped the card on the counter, her hands trembling. Why hadn’t the sender signed the card? Why was there no return address on the envelope?

She closed her eyes, trying to calm the sudden jangle of her nerves. It was just a thank-you note, probably sent by someone too shy to sign her name. Except the writing didn’t look feminine, at all. The bold, black letters seemed masculine. Forceful. Threatening.

A picture of the note flashed through her mind, stained with crimson slashes. She opened her eyes quickly, her pulse ratcheting up to a gallop.

It was a threat. A sneer from a killer who wanted her to know there was nothing she could do to stop him.

Heart pounding, she reached for the phone.

THE BIRMINGHAM Motor Lodge didn’t offer much in the way of amenities, but incongruently, it had free wireless Internet connection, and Daniel took full advantage of it Wednesday morning.

Anything to get his mind off kissing Rose Browning.

Unfortunately, Rose was the focus of his Internet search. She obviously had no intention of spilling her secrets to him, not even after a mind-blowing kiss, and he hadn’t quite sunk to the level of using seduction as an interrogation tool.

But he needed to know more about her. Because she knew something about Orion, something she wasn’t telling. Maybe something she didn’t even realize.

If she had some sort of connection with the killer, Daniel needed to know about it.

He started with something she’d told him last night. Before the kiss. She’d moved to Birmingham only a few months earlier from the town where she’d grown up.

The town of Willow Grove.

The official Web site for Willow Grove didn’t amount to much, and there was nothing on the Web page to indicate that Rose Browning had ever had much standing in the community. However, the site listed contact information for the mayor, Floyd Chamberlain. If Daniel was lucky, Mr. Chamberlain would have heard of him. If he was very lucky, the mayor would be the talkative sort.

It took a little flirting with the mayor’s female aide to get through to the mayor himself, but eventually Floyd Chamberlain took Daniel’s call. “Dr. Hartman, it’s a pleasure to talk to you. I saw you last year on a Fox News segment on school shootings. Our school system has implemented several of your suggestions.”

“Hope they’ve worked for you.”

The mayor’s booming voice rumbled over the phone line. “Oh, they have, Dr. Hartman! They have! We don’t have much in the way of crime around here, but teachers at the high school say the warning signs you mentioned helped them stop problems before they happened. What can I do for you today, sir?”

Daniel decided the truth, or a close approximation, was the way to go. “I’m doing a case study of some murders in Birmingham, and I’ve come across someone from your town. Rose Browning. Are you familiar with her?”

There was the briefest of pauses before the mayor said, “Certainly am. Very sweet, lovely girl. I was sorry to see her move away to the big city.”

Chamberlain was saying all the right things, but that brief hesitation, along with a guarded tone in his voice, piqued Daniel’s interest. “She’s peripherally involved in the cases I’m looking into-recently lost a friend in a violent crime.”

“Oh, no. Poor thing.” The mayor sounded genuinely distressed. “I’d hoped once in a lifetime was enough.”

“It’s happened to her before?” Daniel opened his notepad and scrabbled through the motel desk drawers for a pen.

“Last December.” Chamberlain made a soft clicking noise with his tongue. “I reckon you know she’s a wedding planner-”

“Yes.”

“She’d planned a wedding for Carrie and Dillon Granville. Carrie was a real sweet girl, from a real good family.”

“But Dillon wasn’t?” Daniel surmised from the tone of the mayor’s voice.

“Oh, he was a good-lookin’ boy. Lord knows, half the girls in town were crazy over him, but he could be wild as a hare when he got to drinkin’. And he got to drinkin’ a lot.” The mayor’s voice tightened. “Carrie’s mama and daddy didn’t want her to marry Dillon. He didn’t have a real steady job and he had that wild streak, but Carrie was convinced he was the man for her, and so was Rose. She helped Carrie make up her mind.”

Daniel frowned. That didn’t sound like the Rose he knew.

Then again, how much did he know about her? The first time he’d seen her, she’d been sitting alone in a bar, looking like bait for the next horn dog who walked through the door.

Maybe she had a wild side he didn’t know about.

“Rose planned the wedding for Carrie and Dillon, free of charge, since Dillon didn’t have much money and Carrie’s mama and daddy refused to be part of the whole thing.”

“I take it things ended badly.”

“Last December, apparently, Carrie had decided she’d taken enough of Dillon’s craziness and set about leaving him. Dillon wouldn’t let her go, so he shot her dead. Rose had decided to visit them that day, take them a Christmas present.” Chamberlain lowered his voice. “Poor Rose got there just in time to see Dillon kill himself.”

Daniel’s stomach clenched in sympathy. “My God.”

“She took it real bad, of course. Wasn’t that long before she moved away. And now you say it happened to her again?”

“She didn’t witness it this time,” Daniel said.

“Thank goodness for that, at least.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chamberlain, for your time. Appreciate it,” Daniel said, meaning it.

“I don’t know what I’ve done but prattle on like an old fool,” Chamberlain responded, but he couldn’t hide the pleasure in his voice. “I hope you don’t think Rose had anything to do with the crimes you’re investigating-”

“Not at all,” Daniel assured him. He didn’t think, for a moment, that Rose Browning had anything to do with the murders.

He was less sure, however, that she had no knowledge about the killer that she hadn’t yet chosen to share with him.

But what kind of secret could she be keeping?

His cell phone rang as he was heading out the door to find some lunch. Shrugging on his coat, he answered. “Hartman.”

“Daniel, it’s Rose Browning.”

The warm timbre of her voice sent a shudder of heat rushing through him. “How’d you get my cell-phone number?”

“Melissa gave it to me.” She hesitated. “Something’s happened. I don’t know what it means.”

He went instantly tense. “You okay?”

“Yes, but-could you come here as soon as possible? I need to show you something.”

“I’ll be right there.” Ringing off, he locked the motel-room door behind him and raced for the parking lot.

“DO YOU THINK IT MEANS anything?” Rose gazed up at Daniel, hoping he’d tell her she was letting her imagination run away with her. But the grim set of his mouth squelched that hope.

“Don’t suppose you were wearing gloves when you opened it?”

“No, sorry. I didn’t think to-”

“No reason you should.” Daniel put his hand on her shoulder, sparking a wildfire down her arm before his hand fell away. “I’d like to have this fingerprinted and analyzed, anyway. Mind being fingerprinted so we can eliminate your prints?”

“Of course not. I’ll do whatever you want.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, afraid to ask the next obvious question. She forced herself to voice it, anyway. “Do you think it’s from him?”

Daniel met her worried gaze, his expression calm, but serious. “I don’t know. From what I know of Orion, he hasn’t ever tried to contact anyone-the press or police or any future victims-”

“You think I might be a future victim?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“But it’s possible.”

“Any woman in the world is potentially his victim.” Daniel caught her hand in his. “I don’t think you should panic until we know a little more about the note, though. Could be from someone in the neighborhood who simply forgot to sign it.”

She could tell he didn’t really believe that, but he was right about one thing. The last thing she needed to do was to panic. The sadistic bastard who was killing the women of Southside fed on panic and fear. The only way to beat him was to keep her head and stay alert.

She took a bracing breath. “Okay. What do I do next?”

“Come with me to the South precinct to get printed. Have a plastic bag I could use to protect this?” He gestured toward the card on the counter.

Rose retrieved a plastic sandwich bag from the pantry and took it to Daniel. He used a pair of tweezers to maneuver the note and its envelope into the bag, then tucked the bag in his pocket. “Let’s go.”

Daniel led her outside to his Jeep, his hand warm against the small of her back. He handed her into the passenger seat, his fingers lingering on hers for a moment. “This could be a break, Rose. Could be the break we need.”

Or it could be the beginning of a killer’s campaign of terror, Rose thought.

With her as his next target.